


swallow my heart and flee

by zbalehchic



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zbalehchic/pseuds/zbalehchic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"There are so many things I’m not allowed to tell you.<br/>I touch myself, I dream.<br/>Wearing your clothes or standing in the shower for over an hour, pretending<br/>that this skin is your skin, these hands your hands,<br/>these shins, these soapy flanks."</i><br/>Richard Siken - Dirty Valentine</p><p>Things Ronan thinks about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swallow my heart and flee

It’s the details that get you. The smells and the sounds, the brushes (intentional, accidental, neither). The casual bits, the taking of food the sharing drinks the reserved smiles. Praying turns to thinking of his fingers on your eyelashes. You’re in his car and the feeling of vomit rises up, you’re leaving him gifts (hints, ideas, suggestions) and resting your forehead on the steering wheel where his skin might have been hours ago. You, Ronan Lynch, desperate boy in an ugly state of lust (not love not possible), kissing other boys driving faster and faster and feeling your own heart graze against the hot pavement wanting, more than anything, to be skinned. To be left out in the sun to dry up to dissolve to lose the want to dream of him.

The first time he leaves a bruise, you stand in front of the mirror and memorize its shape its feeling its tingling. This purple blue red thing, above the beating inside of you. The shape of a galaxy. You want it always, this anchor to a dream, no a reality. Because you remember the table pressing against your spine, remember the breathing in your ear.(You remember how he did not kiss your mouth). This bruise is your proof, quiet and clumsy and hidden, but yours to keep.

He leaves a sweatshirt in your room one day, and you start wearing it. No one says anything to you, but you see them exchanging looks, trying to suppress smiles. When he sees you in it, you catch a slight frown and a series of worrying lines around his eyes before he tells you that you can keep it. But you can’t keep it. He has so little, you know what it means for him to lose even one piece of clothing. One less layer of warmth when he’ll really need it. So you give it back. And you start leaving your own clothes, just a shirt at first and then sweaters and scarves and soon enough he’s almost always wearing something that’s yours. He would never take things from Gansey like this, would never let Gansey leave a shirt behind without fighting him. You don’t let yourself hope too much, but you can’t help the softness in you when he lets your hold his hand. You want to believe it’s because he knows you love him (no use lying now). But there’s always the part of you that thinks he’s doing this to appease you. He’s doing it because he’s tired bored confused. So you’re taking his clothes off (yours, your clothes) and telling him over and over _I love you I love you Adam_ and he just breathes and his fingers are pressed on your ribs so hard and it hurts, but you take it as his answer.

In the middle of an ugly heat, you’re sitting outside in the shade of Blue’s favourite tree and she touches your shoulder and says _he loves you, you know._ And yet, he hasn’t said it and he’s moving away. He loves you but he won’t live with you and won’t stay with you. He loves you, but you’re still dreaming about him despite having him right there. And he knows that you worship him, that if he told you to go with him you would, and if he told you to stay behind you would. He loves you but you still find yourself in the shower under painfully cold water, touching yourself and thinking of him thinking of his hands his mouth, thinking of him because he’s not yours. Not the way you are his. When did this happen to you, this filthy lack of dignity when it comes to Adam. You still hate yourself sometimes, that’s why you let him do everything to you and forgive him for never saying those words. You don’t deserve them, not really.

He’s leaving next week and you’re in his bed, trying not to be desperate but you’re clinging to him, your nails digging into his shoulder and your heart vibrating between you. He tells you that he’ll call, that you can still see each other. He’ll pack up your clothes and take them, take your smell with him and maybe he’ll think of you sometimes. But you know that once he leaves, there won’t be anything left. Maybe for a few months you can keep it up, go back and forth and try to make it. And then what? There is nothing after this. His pride is overwhelming, and it wins. He will choose himself, and you can’t blame him. So you just kiss him and agree, _yes we’ll keep in touch. Yes, I’ll wait for you. Yes._

It’s the details. You’re almost always sleeping now, living in your dreams where he says everything you’ve wanted to hear. The sun is on your face and the grass is tickling your feet, the sound of water and birds and he’s so warm and solid beside you. It’s a disease, the craving and the absolute need for him. You have his voice and every inch of him in your head, you know his freckles his very composition. And these details, the details of Adam Parrish, are what carry you. Because as time goes by, your phone rings less and less and one day it just stops. You still wait, but you know it’s useless. You have your dreams, and you have cuts and scrapes he gave you that won’t heal. And you have to learn to let it be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is also from Richard Siken's "Dirty Valentine". This is my first Pynch fic, just a bit of experimental writing! I might do a companion piece from Adam's POV.


End file.
